Lottery and prize-giveaway programs are time-honored techniques for raising money and promoting products. In recent years, the proliferation of such programs has been rather astounding, with much of the increase occurring because more and more states are sponsoring lottery programs as a way of generating revenue.
The scratch-off game card is a very popular way of presenting many lottery and prize-giveaway programs. With scratch-off game cards, a coating (or "paint") is laid down over giveaway information, and the purchaser scratches off the paint to reveal the giveaway information. Of course, the purchaser hopes that the giveaway information under the scratched-off paint will be favorable.
These scratch-off game card programs have proven very successful, and one need only go to a convenience store in a state with a lottery to find three or four different lottery programs presented through scratch-off game cards. Similarly, scratch-off game cards are used for promotional programs by restaurants, mail order magazine companies, breakfast cereal producers, among a myriad of other programs.
With the proliferation of these game cards, the amount of coating that is removed has also increased. This scratched-off paint presents not only an annoyance because of the mess associated with it, but also raises environmental concerns because of its magnitude.
In the past, several devices have been presented to assist in removing the coating from these scratch-off game cards. For example, ticket scrapers were disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,793,061 and 4,646,382. As another example, a lottery ticket processor was disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,654,923. These are a few examples of the many devices that are designed for removing this coating. Unfortunately, many of these scrapers are difficult to use, inefficient, and do nothing to prevent the annoyance and potential environmental problems associated with the coating that has been scratched-off the game cards.
A device for scratching-off such coatings disclosed by Ellis in U.S. Pat. No. 4,881,291 presents a device with a receptacle for collecting the material that has been scraped off the game card. However, that device does not allow for the removal of the coating as efficiently as possible. Furthermore, that device is relatively complicated, and therefore relatively expensive.
Therefore, a need has arisen for a device for removing coatings from game cards that overcomes these problems with prior art devices. In particular, a need has arisen for a method and apparatus for removing coatings more efficiently than prior art techniques. Also, a need has arisen for an apparatus for removing coatings from game cards that is simple and inexpensive to produce. Also, a need has arisen for a method and apparatus with these advantages that also allow for the collection of the removed coating.